Dispensers for pressure-sensitive tapes are known which usually comprise an integral molded plastic frame of U-shape and including a planar tape guide wall and tape severing portion from the opposite side edges of which a pair of flexurable tape roll support arms extend in spaced, generally parallel relation. The support arms are formed with opposed C-shaped portions at a location spaced from and more or less centered on an axis in the plane of the guide wall portion. The C-shaped portions are provided with inwardly facing and axially aligned hub portions for rotatably supporting a roll of tape thereon.
While such type tape dispensers perform satisfactorily to dispense tape wound on cores having a comparatively small size central opening such as 1 1/2 inches or so, species of that dispenser sized to dispense tape wound on considerably larger diameter cores, e.g., cores having a 3 inch diameter central opening, have been found to be unstable when used to dispense or cut tape, particularly where the tape is of a type difficult to cut such as conventional filament tape.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,417,935 discloses a tape dispenser formed of a single plastic molding having a planar front wall portion formed with a serrated tape-cutting edge and having side wall portions extending from its side edges which are bent to extend parallel to each other and which are provided with completely circular opposed hub portions which are snap-locked together around their circular extent. While such type tape dispensers with full circle hub portions are satisfactory to dispense tape wound on cores with small diameter center openings of 1 1/2 inches or so, they also are unsatisfactory for dispensing tapes wound on cores having the considerably larger size center openings of 3 inches in diameter, in that such dispensers then involve an inordinate amount of plastic material and are unwieldy and difficult to handle, particularly when removing an empty core and installing a replacement tape roll.